Writing

1
Writing

• Essays, notes, sketches

2
Outline of todays lecture

• The importance of writing
• Properties of a good essay
• The writing process
• How to improve your writing skills
• General hints

3
Why be a good writer?

• Scientific reports/documentation (developers)
• Proposals for money (management)
• Research papers
• Master thesis (!)

4
Your goal should be..

• The most information in the least amount
• of reading time ?

5
What is an essay?

• Definition (Wikipedia)
• An essay is a short work that treats a topic
  from an author's personal point of view, often
  taking into account subjective experiences and
  personal reflections upon them.
• Purpose
• To inform/persuade

6
How to write an essay - different approaches

• 1. Traditional
• Beginning middle end
• 2. Argumentative
• For instance find an author you disagree
  with, contrast him/her point by point
• 3. Compromise
• Thesis - anti-thesis synthesis
  
• argument counter argument balanced view
• (dialectics)

7
What is a structure?

• An introduction at the start
• A conclusion at the end
• The other stuff in between.

8
Introduction

• You need a solid introduction!
• The introduction may contain
• something about how you have interpreted the
  question,
• a thesis (an argument) which you are going to
  illustrate or explore in the body of the essay.

9
The introduction

• Purpose make the reader want to actually FINISH
  reading your paper!
• Precision let the introduction be relevant to
  the content of the paper!
• Proper length
• Try to make it catchy, without losing the
  precision

10
EssayBefore writing the introduction

• What is the
• Topic?
• Importance?
• Background?

11
Establish your constraints!

• Audience (basic skills, interests)
• Format (layout etc.)
• Mechanics (grammar/punctuation)
• Politics
• The purpose of the document

12
And before starting writing..

• Broad and deep research is essential!

13
Conclusion

• You may save the findings of your exploration
  to the end -gt
• Introduce the question at the start
• You need a conclusion which is the logical
  consequence of everything that has gone before.

14
The Conclusion

• The good essay has developed a number of related
  issues which the conclusion ties together.

15
Excercise in class Mini-writing

• Find arguments pro and con
• Pornography on the Internet
• Write down your conclusion.
• Remember Give the premise(s) arguments
• Draw a conclusion based on that premise (those
  premises).

16

• The Essay Structure

17
Two dull kinds of essay structure

• The one that is not well enough organised
• 1. Definition of the thing
• 2. Some stuff about the thing
• 3. Summary
• The one that follows a formula
• 1. Introduction, saying that we will discuss the
  thing
• 2. Three arguments in favour of the thing
• 3. Three arguments against the thing
• 4. Summary of the above

18
Five really awful ways to begin an essay

• Why have baked beans become so popular in
  Britain?
• The question of why baked beans have become so
  popular in Britain is an interesting
• The Oxford English Dictionary defines baked
  beans as
• In this essay I will explore the question of why
  baked beans have become so popular in Britain
• The Penguin English Dictionary defines popular
  as
• The Collins English Dictionary defines Britain
  as
• Why are these awful? Because they are so
  predictable, uninspiring and limp.

19
Rules of thumb for essay writing

• Answer the question.
• Use a clear, logical structure
• Give your own analysis, not a mere description.
• A fresh, original approach
• Clear, consistent references
• Base your essay on relevant reading and research.
• Argue your case, with your own point of view.
• Show evidence of independent thought.
• Try to avoid formulas, clichés, and the obvious
  approaches.

20
Organising your notes

• Organise your material
• A flow from one argument to the next in a logical
  order.
• Each part should build on the previous parts
• The argumentation should lead the reader to your
  conclusion

21
Some hints on content

• The more analysis, the better
• Good style
• No superfluous words
• Proper punctuation
• No spelling errors (!)

22
A good approach

• Look through your notes and identify some themes
• Structure your essay around consideration of
  those themes
• Structure the analysis of each theme so that the
  essay builds up towards the conclusion.

23
Analysis

• Describe something before you give an analysis of
  it.
• Only include as much description as is needed for
  the analysis to make sense.
• Give a clear, coherent and consistent analysis,
  supported by evidence.
• Dont just repeat what books or papers say
  write your own analysis
• Show your awareness of other peoples analyses,
  with references!

24
Some hints on content

• The more analysis, the better
• Good style
• No superfluous words
• Proper punctuation
• No spelling errors (!) Use a spell-checker.

25
Dont wander off the subject

• Answer the question, and only the question.
• NB! Keep checking that you are remaining on track
  throughout the essay.
• If there is something interesting that you want
  to include, but which is of dubious relevance to
  the main argument or theme of the essay, put it
  in a footnote.

26

• Gather material first, dont just start writing!
• Plan ahead dont rush!
• Be aware of your style
• Strong sentences
• No spelling errors (!)
• Proper punctuation
• Avoid ambiguity
• How personal?

27
Avoid ambiguity

• Pronoun what does this refer to?
• Commas
• Its and its

28
Example false advertising

• Introduction
• Man has since the beginning of time attempted to
  acquire a greater control over his environment.
  Man's need for better control over his
  environment has increased greatly since World War
  II. This need for control is evident in all
  technological settings, including the welding
  field.

29
A better approach..

• This paper describes a new inertial navigation
• system that will increase the mapping accuracy of
  oil wells by a factor of ten.
• The new system uses three-axis navigation that
  protects sensors from high-spin rates. The system
  also processes its information by Kalman
  filtering (a statistical sampling technique) in
  an on-site computer.

30
Yet an Example - Introduction

• Its no surprise that the age we are in today is
  called the Information Age. This is due to the
  fact that the Internet has given most people
  access to unimaginable wealth of information. As
  with any other new technology people will find
  ways to use it for their benefit. One area that
  has experienced growth is plagiarism due to
  Internet usage.

31
Mistakes - ambiguity

• If you receive an e-mail titled "Win A Holiday,"
  do not open it. It will erase everything on your
  hard drive. Forward this e-mail to as many people
  as you can. This is a very malicious virus and
  not many people know about it.

32
More ambiguity

• In meeting the staff of the Parks Department, the
  greatest problem was that of water leakage.

33
And even more ambiguity

• Man Killed When Truck
• Hit by Train Identified
• Headline in The Capital Times
• Saturday, September 23, 1996

34
The Use of Sources
Use the Internet but with care and
discrimination.
35
Plagiarism

• Definition Using others' ideas and words
  without clearly acknowledging the source of that
  information
• Actions that are similar to plagiarism
• Stealing
• Fraud
• Hiring someone to write your paper
• Faking, imitating, replicating

36
Academic dishonesty

• Cheating, plagiarism, or other forms of academic
  dishonesty 
• Willful and intentional fraud and deception for
  the purpose of improving a grade or obtaining
  course credit
• Remember As a student you have the full
  responsibility for the content and integrity of
  all academic work submitted

37
Recent Examples

• The Sudbø scientific fraud
• In January 2006 it was revealed that his October
  2005 submission to The Lancet was based upon
  fraudulent patient data.
• The Lancet is one of the oldest and most
  respected peer-reviewed medical journals in the
  world,
• The whole patient material was fictional.

38
Motivation to commit scientific misconduct

• Why?
• For instance
• Career pressure
• "Knowing the right answer"
• "The ability to get away with it"
• - wikipedia

39
Dont cheat

• Plagiarism using other peoples words and ideas
  without acknowledging where you got them from
  is regarded as an enormous sin
• Make sure that you have got perfect references!

40
How to avoid plagiarism

• Footnotes, references, and bibliographies
• Quotations direct words of the original author,
  use quotation marks
• Paraphrase, summarise stating someone else's
  ideas in your own words

41
Sources

• ESSAY- WRITING - THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE - by David
  Gauntlett (l998, revised 2OOO, 2OOl).
• University of Leeds Institute of Communication
  studies http//ics.leeds.ac.uk/ - Study materials

42
Next week

• Tuesday Bring your mini-essay! Discussions.
• Friday The Internet. Read Chapter 3.
• The week after Ethical theory. Guest lecture.
  (?)